How to Write Great Web Content - Better Search Rankings!

This lecture introduces the course and the instructor.

Many of Google's updates over the years have been to close loopholes employed by webmasters that allowed them to rank poor quality content at the top of the results pages. This lecture looks at some of the Google updates designed to combat the "spammers".

It used to be easy to rank on Google. Stuff the keyword you wanted to rank in a number of different places on your page, and build a few backlinks using the exact phrase. and you were in the top 10. Things are different now. This lecture looks at how we used to rank pages.

Google Webmaster Guidelines are very important and you should read, digest and learn. This tutorial shows you how to access them.

This lecture covers the more important design and content guidelines that we need to be aware of.

This tutorial looks at three simple technical guidelines you need to be aware of.

In terms of writing content, the quality guidelines provide us with the most useful information. This lecture covers the important quality guidelines that we will be basing our own content on.

We've seen a lot of guidelines, but there are two I want you to remember, as these two will keep you on the straight and narrow, and out of trouble with Google.

Good content will keep visitors coming back for more. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to come up with content ideas, and this section of the course will cover some of them.

If you are ever stuck for content ideas, check out your competitors. What are they writing about? Can you borrow their ideas to create your own unique content?

Rss feeds are useful tools for spying on content creators. This tutorial shows you how to setup a feed reader, for never ending content ideas.

We can use "footprints" at Google to identify popular topics in our niche. In this lecture, I'll go through some of the more important footprints that you can use.

Forums are places people go to discuss the topics that are of interest to them. There are many niche-specific forums, and these make ideal places to meet other enthusiasts, and find out what content would be of interest to them.

There are a number of Q&A sites where visitors can ask questions and get answers. By checking out relevany questions on these sites, you can come up with real questions you can answer on your own website.

Keyword research is usually my last resort when looking for content ideas, but Google Keyword Planner does have a nice feature that can often help with ideas.

This introductory lecture will summarize the types of content you can put on your site, all of which we'll cover in more detail in this section of the coruse.

Link bait is a very important concept, not only in terms of providing your visitors with engaging content, but also in helping your content rank higher in the search engines.

Articles are the most popular form of web content.

PDFs offer us an alternative way of getting our content in front of people.

A picture tells a thousand words.... Make use of images in your own web content to break up blocks of text, tell part of a story, or just as link bait.

With Google owning Youtube, video is another great medium to use on web sites.

Frequently asked questions (Q&As) make great content for visitors.

Don't underestimate the value of sound files to your visitors. People love to listen to stuff while driving, walking etc.

I love top 10 lists because done correctly, they offer a great chance of going viral. It's one of the easier ways of creating share bait.

Glossaries and resource pages can be a great addition to a lot of websites. Not only are they helpful to visitors, but they can also atract links and shares.

Tutorials are great content for any site. Build up a resource of tutorials in your niche, and you have a useful resource that will get shared and linked to.

It's time to look at the core concept of creating great content that the search engines love. All content that you want Google to take notice of should follow this concept.

To make sure you understand the previous lecture, here is a short exercise for you to carry out yourself.

We are going to be looking at how you can find niche vocabulary for any topic or keyword you want to rank for. But first, let me just prove to you just how important niche vocabulary is to Google.

Before we start looking at ways of identifying specific theme words and phrases, I need to get one very important point across. This tutorial covers this important point.

Although popular with other webmasters and SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers), the Keyword Planner is not a method I would use to come up with related words and phrases, and this tutorial will tell you why..

In this tutorial, I want to show you a method that guarantees you'll find the most relevant theme words and phrases for your content. This method uses 100% free tools.

It's time to practice what you just learnt.

In this tutorial, I want to show you the software tool that I use to help create my own themed content. This tool is not necessary at all, it's just a lot faster and can save you time. I would recommend EVERYONE initially finds theme words and phrases using the previous method. Learn the system first...

I've seen some people using Google Autocomplete, or Ubersuggest to gather theme words. They really don't work, but they are useful for content creators.

An introduction to this section of the course.

For each piece of content we create, we have 10 competitors - the top 10 results in Google. How are you going to make your content better than those other 10? This video looks at the first way your content will be better, and offers ideas to add even more value for the visitor.

We are going to look at the Meta Description and filename at the same time as we look at the title. Reasons for this will become obvious.

In the previous lecture, we used the SEOmofo tool to craft a title, description, etc. This PDF includes a link to this free resource.

What about the Meta Keyword tag I hear you ask?

Headlines have an important SEO role, but are also vital to get right for your visitors.

You worked hard finding the niche vocabulary for your content, now it's time to write. Let's go over the basics of theming your content.

Let me show you my article, and how the niche vocabulary is used naturally. We'll check the theme with a paid software tool in this video, and I'll show you how to use a free text editor to check the theme in the next video.

In the previous tutorial, we looked at the article and checked the theme with Web Content Studio. However, you can check the theme with a free text editor, and in this video I'll show you how.

As you saw when we were looking at Google updates, the above the fold content on your page is important.

Grammar and spelling are important, though more for your visitors than the search engines. Let me explain why.

When your content is ready to be posted to your site, do a final check on the quality. In this lecture, I'll give you a quick checklist of the important points to consider.

We want people to share our content on their own social media channels, so make it easy for them.

Useful resources as you move forward.